The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus – A Renowned Writer Attempts Something New
The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally 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 rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success 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 troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
