The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
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 responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
