The new book centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl 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 whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
