This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
