This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the 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 property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
