The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three 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 renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par