The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
