The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting 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 rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment 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 not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
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 tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
