The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
