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

The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped 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 devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par