The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
