The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved 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 fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
