The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the 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 housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
