The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
