This latest work is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing 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 overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
