The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended 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 aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
