This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
