The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
