The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
