The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist 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 explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" 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 departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest 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 Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, 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
