The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, 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 bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
