Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Something New

The new book is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par