The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
