This latest work centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion 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 nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
