The new book centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child 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 responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
