The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
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 intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point 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 Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
