The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
