The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – 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 urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says 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 fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
