This latest work is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
