The new book features protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
