The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see 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 alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
