This latest work centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself 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 two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. 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 Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
