The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
