The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
