The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
