The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
