The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become 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, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
