The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy 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 a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues 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 ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
