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

The new book centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par