This latest work centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction 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 Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
