This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
