The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "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 Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
