The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex 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 killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
