The new book centers on characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder 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 Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
