The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
