This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
