The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world 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 rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
