The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
