The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when 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 with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
