The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. 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 exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
