The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, 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 Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits 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 opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
