The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
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 histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues 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 reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
