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

The new book centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par