The new book features protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
