The new book is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. 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, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
