This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued 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 personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, 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 the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
