The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting 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 herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
