The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
