The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists 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 "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression 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 could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
