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

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par