The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual 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 self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder 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 the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. 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 point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
