The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone 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 disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
