The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim 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 directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par