The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back 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 Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
