The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
