The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
