This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, 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 divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
