The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
