The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
