Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Explores Something New

This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned 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 fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, 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