The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
