The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
