The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, 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 youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
