The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
