The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par