The new book is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking 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 becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
