Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Attempts New Ground

The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par