The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, 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 delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
