The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Explores Fresh Territory

The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "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 new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par