The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
