The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
