A Look at The Four Spent the Day Together from author Chris Kraus – A Cult Writer Attempts New Ground
This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
