The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, 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 container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
