The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
