The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
