The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
