This latest work is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
