This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
