The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character 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 account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder 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 Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
