The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion 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 America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, 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 explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
