The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer 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, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
