The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents 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 idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, 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
