🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally 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 addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par