A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par