This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
