The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, 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 go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
