The new book features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "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 new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
