The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
