This latest work is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped 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 has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par