The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words 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."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
