The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates 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 discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see 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 with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
