This latest work features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". 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 fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
