The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
