The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics 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 perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
