The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
