The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
