This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
