The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
