This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began 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, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
