This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn 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 murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
