The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
