The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
