The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing 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 abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to 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 small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to 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
