This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
