The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, 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
