The new book centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to 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 considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about 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 frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
