The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging 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 identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says 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 be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
