The new book features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
