The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning 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 narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
