The new book centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker 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 experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about 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 violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
