A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Explores Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par