The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Ventures Into New Ground

The new book is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par