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

The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par