The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
