The new book centers on individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
