The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
