The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero 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 shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
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 responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
