This latest work centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
