The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
