The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
