A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from author Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Attempts New Ground

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par