The new book centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
