This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment 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 author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
