The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
