The new book centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex 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 shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
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 clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
