The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
