The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
