The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
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 audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
