The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, 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 Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
