This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
