The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted 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 large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended 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 fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
