Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together from author Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Ventures Into New Ground

This latest work features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature 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 imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par