The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
