This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named 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 with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
