The new book centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, 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". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
