The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, 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 repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
