The new book is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator 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 fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
