The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, 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 a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. 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 youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
