The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. 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 a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
