The new book is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. 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 leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
