The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved 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, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling 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 directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
