The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
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 backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. 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 leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
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 ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
