The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" 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 leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
