This latest work centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished 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 – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
