The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
