The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
