The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
