The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness 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 turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
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 pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
