The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
