The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
