🔗 Share this article

This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par