The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, 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, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
