The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet 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 having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
