This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, 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 mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
