The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
