The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus β A Renowned Writer Attempts New Ground
This latest work is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work β documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras β all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream β not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question β and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see 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 with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah β a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
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 reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her β a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
