This latest work is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
