The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Ventures Into Fresh Territory

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned 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 the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par