The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
