The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
