The Four Spent the Day Together from Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts New Ground
The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
