The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
