A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – An Iconic Writer Ventures Into New Ground
The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual 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 polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par