The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual 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 honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
