A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together by author Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Ventures Into Something New

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par