The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
