The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into 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 resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy 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 partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
