The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
