The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing 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 overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
