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

This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered 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. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion 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 United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par