🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par