The Four Spent the Day Together from author Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet 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 with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par