The new book features protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
