The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" 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 may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, 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 delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
