The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
