The new book centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling 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 entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par