The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
