The new book is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
