The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
