The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
