The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
