The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative 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 histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America 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 murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
