The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
