Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Explores Fresh Territory

This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par