This latest work features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
