The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
