🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par