The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
