🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states 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 not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in 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 detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par