The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an visual artist 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 rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice 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 real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see 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 having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
