This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by 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 now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
