The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
