The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered 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. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
