The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, 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 go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
