This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
