The new book centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
