The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
