The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
