The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the 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 much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
