The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
