Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts New Ground

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par