The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
