This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, 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
