🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par