The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind 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 trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes 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 fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
