The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
