This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
