The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "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 dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. 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 point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
