The new book centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed 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 imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
