This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
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