The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
