A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Attempts Something New

The new book features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par