This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
