The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
