The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied 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 Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
