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

The new book centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par