The new book centers on characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene 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, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired 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 fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
