The new book is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
