The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "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. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
