Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Attempts Fresh Territory

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par