The new book features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par