The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "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 new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
