The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
