The new book is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
