This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
