The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Fresh Territory

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par