This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
