This latest work features individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
