The new book is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
