🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus 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 personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, 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 explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par