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

The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par