This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
