This latest work is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
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, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed 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 young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, 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. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
