The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, 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 substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing 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 perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
