The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
