The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
