The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
