The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
