The new book is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
