The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded 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, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
