This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style 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 untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
