The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths 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 bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
