The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
