The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
