The new book is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally 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 three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
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