The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, 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. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse 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 brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see 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, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
