The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet 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 having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
