The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Attempts Something New

The new book centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par