The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
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 audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
