The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression 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 becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
