The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" 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 departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
