This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
