The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character 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. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
