The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
