A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Explores Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units 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 her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par