The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt 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 responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
