This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states 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 three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
