A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from author Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Explores New Ground

The new book features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition 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 directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par