This latest work features individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
