The Four Spent the Day Together by author Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts New Ground
The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally 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 substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
