This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent 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 role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
