The new book features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
