The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned 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 America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
