The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in 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 jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
