The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent 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 a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
