This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness 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 become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
