The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment 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 be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
