The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
