This latest work features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
