The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks 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 social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
