This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
