This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named 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 intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
