The new book features characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when 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, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
