This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected 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 devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
