The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
