🔗 Share this article

The new book features protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par