The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named 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 with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
