The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
