The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. 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 extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
