The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
