This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says 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 social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
