This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
