The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, 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 her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
