The new book features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
