The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
