The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through 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 fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
