The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
