The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
