The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
