🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece 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 expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest 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 story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us 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 Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par