The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
