This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
