The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
