The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer 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 assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple 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 pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
