The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
