The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into 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 significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself 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 feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
