This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, 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 community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim 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 in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
