The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, 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 organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression 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 in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
