The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
