The new book features individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named 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 short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
