The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives 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 comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
