The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Ventures Into New Ground

The new book centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par