The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
