The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter 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 murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
