The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
