This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
