This latest work centers on individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
