The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
