This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "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 new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
