🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par