This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
