The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
