The new book centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an visual 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, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
