The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "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 new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
