The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states 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 fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
