The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
