The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format 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 major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "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 different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
