The new book centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
