The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. 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 beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent 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 often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
