The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
