The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
