The new book features individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. 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 addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma 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 persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, 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
