The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse 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 liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much 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 the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par