This latest work centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. 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 paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
