The new book features individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
