The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature 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 histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
