The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
