🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par