The Four Spent the Day Together features characters 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 "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
