The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
