This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par