This latest work is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see 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, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
