The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears 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 America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
