The new book features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative 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 real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "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 new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest 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 the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
