The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics 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 victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. 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 paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
