Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together by author Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Fresh Territory

This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity 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 experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par