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

The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par