The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Ventures Into New Ground

The new book centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par