Exploring The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts Something New

This latest work features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism 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. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par