The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed 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 renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues 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 Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
