The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, 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 appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
