The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated 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 go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
