This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, 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 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. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, 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 trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
