This latest work centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author 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 protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
