The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering 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. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
