The new book centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation 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 remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment 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, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
