The new book centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par