The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers 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 exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with 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
