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

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par