This latest work features protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative 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 brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
