The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
