The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "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 dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
