This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
