A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Explores Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on 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, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par