The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice 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 considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated 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 delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
