The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town 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 sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned 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 not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
