The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
