🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

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 pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par