The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
