The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
