This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
