The new book features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see 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 in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
