This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
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 daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
