The new book features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
