The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts New Ground

This latest work features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of 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 locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par