The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "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 different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
