The new book features protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
