The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
