The new book features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, 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 researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
