The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
