The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
