The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
