The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
