The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges 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 the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
