The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
