The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
