The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par