The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
