A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together by author Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Fresh Territory

The new book features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "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. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par