This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
