The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
