The new book centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
