The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
