The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit 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, mooching around getting his car mended 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 aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
