The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "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 fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
