The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
