The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
