The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
