The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
