The new book features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist 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, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
