This latest work features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an creative 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 kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
