The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment 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 not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid 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 detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
