The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, 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
