The new book centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness 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 beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex 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 killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
