The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling 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 comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
