The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned 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 fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
