The new book features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
