The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp 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 murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
