The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
