This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
