The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Explores New Ground

The new book features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

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 pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" 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 exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par