The new book centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
