The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified 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 states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation 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 referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
