This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
