This latest work is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, 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. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see 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 having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
