The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
