The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Explores Something New

This latest work centers on characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, 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. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par