The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
