This latest work features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
