This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society 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 "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
