This latest work centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
