The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society 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 "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
