🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par