The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
