The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim 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, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
