The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
