The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes 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, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. 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 Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
