This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
