The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
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 dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
