The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
