This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
