This latest work features individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
