The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
