The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
