The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
