The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
