The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
