The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness 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 evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature 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 histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
