The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
