The new book centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
