The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder 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.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
