The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
