The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into 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 story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
