The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder 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 perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized 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 responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
