The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states 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 not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
