The new book centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
