The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par