The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, 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
