The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped 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 dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
