The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense 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 states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
