The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses 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, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
