This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
