🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par