The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed 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 standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
