The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to 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 detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
