This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
