This latest work features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
