The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Explores New Ground

The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted 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. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par