This latest work centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
