The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
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