This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
