The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
