The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
