The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
