The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken 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 previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
