The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Attempts Fresh Territory

The new book centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" 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 exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par