The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
