The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her 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 brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion 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 be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells 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 Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
