The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
