The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit 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 having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
