This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
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 is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
