The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
