The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
