The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
