The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives 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 a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner 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 account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges 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 compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
