This latest work features protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
