The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted 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 Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much 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 not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
