The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
