This latest work centers on individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative 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. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied 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 often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
