This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. 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 beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
