This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells 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 wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
