A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Explores New Ground

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse 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. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par