This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
