The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment 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 affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
