The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths 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."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
