The new book centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
