The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming 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 letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
