The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp 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 actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
