The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, 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 says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
