This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
