The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. 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 her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
