The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Explores Fresh Territory

This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par