This latest work centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling 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 precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
