The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
