The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks 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 social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues 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 the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
