This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further 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 – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
