The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest 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 ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
