The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
