The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile 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 gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
