The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
