The new book is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
