Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts Fresh Territory

This latest work centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par