The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. 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 ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
