🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par