The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
