The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
