This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
