The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
