This latest work is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit 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, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
