The new book is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended 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 frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
