The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative 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 much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
