The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
